MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
IN POTENTIALLY CAPITAL CASES (1987)
by Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael L. Radelet

Excerpt from Appendix A: Catalogue of Defendants
 

PARKER, GEORGE (white). 1980. New Jersey. Parker was convicted of aggravated manslaughter and sentenced to twenty years in prison. The chief evidence against Parker came from two eyewitnesses, one of whom was later indicted and convicted of the murder and both of whom were subsequently convicted of perjuring themselves in Parker’s trial. Parker at first confessed to the crime, but later claimed that he had done so because he was in love with the woman who actually committed it. On appeal, the conviction was affirmed, and the state supreme court denied a petition for certification.1 In 1986, after the convictions of the two women, Parker was awarded a new trial.2 The appellate court found that “the State essentially conceded that Parker’s confession . . . was false,”3 and that the newly discovered evidence “is the State’s camouflaged concession that defendant was convicted on the basis of perjured and false testimony.”4 It concluded that “[i]n light of the subsequent convictions [of the two women], the prosecution’s case against Parker has been wholly discredited.”5

Footnotes

1. State v. Parker, 93 N.J. 260, 460 A.2d 665 (1983).
 
2. State v. Parker, No. A-453-83T4 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Feb. 4, 1986).
 
3. Id., slip op. at 9.
 
4. Id., slip op. at 10-11.
 
5. Id., slip op. at 13; see also N.Y. Times, Feb. 9, 1986, at 46, col. 1.